Yesterday's Real Journalist News - FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2018

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FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2018

• Zepp-LaRouche: The British Empire Is Now Fully Exposed, It Must Be Crushed!
• Former British Diplomat Craig Murray Debunks Russia Nerve Agent Allegations
• Russian UN Ambassador Nebenzia Responds to British and American Histrionics
• Lavrov: West Fears Loss of Its Dominance, Emergence of New, Just Multipolar Order
• ‘Forget NATO,’ Rants British Empire Editor: We Need Strength To Contain Russia and China
• North Korean Foreign Minister in Sweden: Speculation on Trump-Kim Meeting
• Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Iran Will Meet To Discuss Revival of Silk Road
• Belt and Road Was Part of Key Discussion Panel at 11th Europe-Ukraine Forum
• U.S. Cabinet Tells Senate: Infrastructure Bill Has To Come from Congress
• Italian Economist Bagnai, Newly Elected Senator, Promotes Glass-Steagall for Italy
• Putin Announces Russian Mars Mission for 2019
• China-Built High-Speed Rail Will Transform Panama, Industry Minister Predicts
• Russia and China Establish a Strategic Joint Uranium Mining Project in Siberia

EDITORIAL
Zepp-LaRouche: The British Empire Is Now Fully Exposed, It Must Be Crushed!
March 15 (EIRNS)—In her weekly international webcast today, Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche appropriately warned that the British operation against Russia, which escalated this week with London’s charges that Moscow is responsible for the nerve-gas poisoning of Russian MI6 double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, “stinks to high heaven.” This is an “unbelievable provocation” against Russia, she said, but is directly related to the fact that the British Empire and its intelligence services are totally exposed and weakened. “Former” MI6 agent Christopher Steele has not only been exposed as the central figure in the attempt to bring down the Trump Presidency in the U.S., but his pawprints are also all over the Skripal case—he helped turn him into a British double agent—as well as in the earlier similar case, involving the death of Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko. Through his Orbis Business Intelligence company, he has spent the decade since he “left” MI6, manufacturing evidence to “prove” that Russia was meddling in the elections of several European countries, trying to destroy the European Union, and any number of other alleged “crimes.”

Britain’s former Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has pointed to the weakness of Prime Minister Theresa May’s charges that Russia poisoned Skripal with the so-called nerve gas Novichok. As reported below, Murray points out that Novichok is a substance no one has ever seen and whose existence is even doubted. The British government chemical weapons laboratory at Porton Down has acknowledged in publications that it has never seen any Russian Novichok. Nor is the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) or the Porton Down lab convinced that Novichok even exists. Is this why the British government is refusing to provide a sample of Novichok to the OPCW, or to follow the strict protocol the OPCW has established for investigating such cases?

Zepp-LaRouche explained that this latest attack on Russia, which has escalated very rapidly just in the course of this week, as well as threats delivered by the U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley that the U.S. may bomb Syria, all have to do with the fact that “the New Paradigm is winning and the old paradigm is shattered. I think there is a new strategic reality, coming from the ever-expanding and very progressively-moving New Silk Road, involving now more than 140 countries, as [Chinese Foreign Minister] Wang Yi said recently in a Beijing press conference.” It would be a grave mistake to underestimate the impact of President Vladimir Putin’s March 1 speech, and his announcement of new advanced weapons systems which render the West’s ABM systems obsolete, Zepp-LaRouche emphasized. “This has created a new strategic reality, and I think this British operation, and the escalation in Syria are really rearguard battles of a system which is clearly failing.” That makes them no less dangerous, however.

In a similar vein, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov commented insightfully that what is happening now is that the U.S. and its Western allies see that “the 500-year-long period of Western domination in world affairs is coming to an end.” The transition to a new, multipolar, democratic and just world order will take some time, he told a Moscow forum, “but already now this transition is painful for those who are in the habit of ruling the world for centuries.” And, they are “nervous” that Russia has emerged as an “equitable partner who does not impose anything on others, but does not tolerate dictating or ultimata.” He also pointed out that Theresa May is “desperate” and weak, unable to keep promises made to the population as Britain prepares to leave the European Union.

Mrs. LaRouche pointed out that Theresa May could have seen one too many James Bond movies, and thinks she is the infamous “M” who was Bond’s boss. But, she added, “this is not a game.” These antics are dangerous, “but I think it is really this kind of James Bond stuff. If you ever look at a James Bond movie again, I mean what are they doing? They’re terrorists! They’re breaking the law! … and obviously that is all the fantasy realm of British intelligence. People should really take a second look at this, and start an investigation of British collusion, in the Trump case, and now in the Skripal case.”

Zepp-LaRouche noted that at the beginning of this year, she said that “we must overcome geopolitics,” because in an era of nuclear weapons, nothing can be solved by military means. “What is coming from the British now is only useful in one respect: it makes absolutely clear the role they are playing. They have been doing that the whole time, but now it is more open than at any time before.” It is therefore crucial “that we really move to end the British Empire and replace it with the New Paradigm, a new set of international relations among nations based on sovereignty, based on respect for the other’s social system, for the common aims of mankind, and I think that debate is absolutely urgently needed.”

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
Former British Diplomat Craig Murray Debunks Russia Nerve Agent Allegations
March 15 (EIRNS)—Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray has debunked the allegations about a Russian poison nerve agent on his website, using sources he says he cannot disclose now. However, he charges that “The Novichok Story Is Indeed Another Iraqi WMD Scam,” as the headline of his blog reads.

Basically, the U.K. government is claiming that former Russian GRU turned MI6 double agent Sergei Skripal was killed by “Novichok,” a substance no one has ever seen and whose existence is even doubted, so that if indeed it was used, this would be the first time, and British experts wouldn’t be able to identify it. Furthermore, they should have delivered a sample to the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), of which the U.K. is member.

He summarized his conclusions as follows:

“1) Porton Down [the U.K. government laboratory dealing with chemical weapons] has acknowledged in publications that it has never seen any Russian ‘Novichoks.’ The U.K. government has absolutely no ‘fingerprint’ information, such as impurities, that could safely attribute any sample to Russia.

“2) Until now, neither Porton Down nor the world’s experts at the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) were convinced ‘Novichoks’ even exist.

“3) The U.K. is refusing to provide a sample to the OPCW.

“4) ‘Novichoks’ were specifically designed to be able to be manufactured from common ingredients on any scientific bench. The Americans dismantled and studied the facility that allegedly developed them. It is completely untrue only the Russians could make them, if anybody can.

“5) The Novichok program was in Uzbekistan, not in Russia. Its legacy was inherited by the Americans during their alliance with [Uzbek President Islam] Karimov, not by the Russians.”

Russian UN Ambassador Nebenzia Responds to British and American Histrionics
March 15 (EIRNS)—Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia gave a calm but sharply worded response to yesterday’s antics at the UN Security Council, where U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley and British Ambassador Jonathan Allen hurled accusations that Russia is guilty of poisoning former MI6 double agent, former Russian GRU Col. Sergei Skripal and his daughter, and “must be held accountable.” In her usual banshee fashion, Haley warned that if “we don’t take immediate, concrete measures to address this now, Salisbury [U.K., where the poisoning occurred] will not be the last place we see chemical weapons used.”

Calling British accusations “completely irresponsible,” Nebenzia pointedly asked why the U.K. “dragged” this matter before the UNSC rather than bringing it to the appropriate venue of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) at The Hague. The fact is, he asserted, the U.K. broke protocol on this issue because it feared that the “real experts” at the OPCW wouldn’t be so easily convinced of the so-called evidence. “We asked for samples of the substance used to assist in a joint investigation,” he reported, but “this request was ignored.” He also stated that while Russia had nothing to gain from such an attack, “I can think of a great number of countries that would benefit from such accusations.”

Former military intelligence agent Sergei Skripal had been pardoned and was “no longer a threat to Russia,” Nebenzia argued, but at the same time, he could clearly serve as “the perfect victim who could justify any unthinkable lie, any kind of untruth tarnishing Russia.” He underscored that it is “mandatory”—not optional—that the U.K. provide samples of the nerve gas in question for examination in an investigation. “We demand material proof of the alleged Russian nerve agent traces from this event. Merely stating there is incontrovertible proof is unacceptable.”

Lavrov: West Fears Loss of Its Dominance, Emergence of New, Just Multipolar Order
March 15 (EIRNS)—Speaking yesterday in Moscow at the forum “Russia: A Country of Opportunities,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov commented insightfully on the “nervous” response of the U.S. and its Western allies to “Russia’s comeback as an equitable partner who does not impose anything on others, but does not tolerate dictating or ultimata. Our Western partners’ reaction to this is very painful,” he said, reported TASS.

Lavrov explained that “we do not seek confrontation with anyone. We wish to cooperate with all on equitable terms, on the basis of mutual respect and search for a balance of interest and mutually-acceptable approaches.” However, he went on, “what we see happening now is that the U.S. and its Western allies agree that the 500-year-long period of Western domination in world affairs is coming to an end.” The transition to a new, multipolar, democratic and just world order will last for a long time, “but already now this transition is painful for those who are in the habit of ruling the world for centuries. They are in the habit of ruling the roost,” Lavrov said.

He reported that Moscow will soon announce measures in response to London’s expulsion of Russian diplomats yesterday, stating that the Theresa May government is quite “desperate,” because, among other things, it cannot fulfill the promises it made to the British population regarding leaving the European Union, he told Sputnik. British claims against Russia are outrageous, he said. Russia is “prepared for restoring partnership with the European Union when our European neighbors no longer have the wish” to emulate the U.S.’s Russophobia, including sanctions and provocations, “and when they are no longer interested in tolerating the outrageous actions that we have seen on the part of the British government that go far beyond the bounds of elementary decency.”

‘Forget NATO,’ Rants British Empire Editor: We Need Strength To Contain Russia and China
March 15 (EIRNS)—In a totally insane column on March 14, but no more insane than the collapsing British Empire itself, Allister Heath, editor of the Sunday Telegraph, wrote under the headline: “Forget NATO. We Need a New World Alliance To Take On Totalitarian Capitalists in Russia and China.”

His conclusions are:

“The stark reality is that the world is now a much more dangerous place which requires a completely new foreign and defense policy. First, the U.K. needs to spend more on defense. The target should be 2.5% of GDP; we should no longer assume that conventional wars are over. With the exception of France, our EU neighbors don’t want to spend to protect themselves, seeking instead to free-ride on America; Brexit is a great opportunity to break with such an utterly irresponsible approach.

“Second, we must take the lead in building a new global military and economic alliance of like-minded countries committed to the promotion of capitalism and liberal democracy. NATO is no longer enough: It is too European, too many of its members are outright pacifists, and Turkey’s membership is problematic. The UN is ineffective and, like NATO, the product of a previous, 20th century conflict.

“The new network should be based on mutual self-interest and respectful of national sovereignty; it would be open to all liberal democracies that practice capitalism, and that respect human rights, intellectual property and privacy. It should be a values alliance, governed by a treaty guaranteeing military self-help and seeking the freest possible trade in goods and services. America would be a member, as would Canada, India, Israel, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, France (if it remains sufficiently distinct from the emerging European super-state) and many others.

“Such an alliance would be the biggest shift in geopolitics since the creation of the UN. It would dramatically shift the global balance of power, and allow the liberal democracies finally to fight back. It would endow the world with the sorts of robust institutions that are required to contain Russia and China and to deal with cyber-terrorism or chemical warfare. Britain needs a new role in the world: building such a network would be our perfect mission.”

U.S. POLITICAL & ECONOMIC
North Korean Foreign Minister in Sweden: Speculation on Trump-Kim Meeting
March 15 (EIRNS)—North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho is in Sweden on a two-day visit over March 15-16. His trip has prompted speculation that it could lay the groundwork for the meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Sweden has maintained a diplomatic presence in Pyongyang since 1970.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reports that Foreign Minister Ri was accompanied by Choe Kang Il, deputy director general of the North American Bureau of North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, while transferring in China ahead of his flight to Stockholm, reported Yonhap.

Ri Yong-ho will meet Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom on March 15 and 16, Stockholm’s Foreign Ministry confirmed today. However, its statement made no mention of a connection between Ri’s visit and the Trump-Kim summit talks. It reported that, “The talks are to focus on Sweden’s consular role as a protecting power for the United States, Canada and Australia in North Korea. They will also address the security situation on the Korean Peninsula, which is high on the [UN] Security Council agenda.” Sweden is one of the 10 non-permanent members of the UNSC for 2017-18.

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said on March 10 that his country was ready and willing to host an historic meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un. “If we can help in any way, we will do it,” he said, and continued that “the fact that we are a protecting power for the U.S., have been at the [DMZ] border since the 1950s, and have had an embassy in Pyongyang since the start of the 1970s has given us a special relationship with North Korea in which we feel they trust us,” he told the Swedish TT news agency in an interview.

NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Iran Will Meet To Discuss Revival of Silk Road
March 15 (EIRNS)—Speaking to reporters at Ankara’s Esenboga Airport before his visit to the Azerbaijani capital to attend the 6th Global Baku Forum, Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said “the foreign ministers of these four countries will have the opportunity to discuss and revive the historic Silk Road,” Hurriyet Daily Newsreported. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Azerbaijan Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, Georgian Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze, and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif are expected to meet. Yildirim did not mention when and where this meeting will take place.

The global One Belt, One Road program launched in 2013 by China, plans to revive the Silk Road with new road and rail networks built through China, Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan and Georgia, extending to Europe via Turkey.

Following his meeting with Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, Yildirim highlighted the significance of the Trans- Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) project, as well as the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway project, which operates between Turkey and Azerbaijan, Hurriyet Daily News reported.

Belt and Road Was Part of Key Discussion Panel at 11th Europe-Ukraine Forum
March 15 (EIRNS)—Reporting on the Belt and Road Initiative panel discussion at the 11th Europe-Ukraine forum in Jasionka, southern Poland, that ended today, Xinhua said, “The New Silk Road on the trans-continental transport corridors’ map” took center stage.

Polish Minister of Infrastructure Andrzej Adamczyk was one of the speakers on the panel dedicated to the Belt and Road Initiative. He underlined the importance of creating communication corridors between Europe and Asia, saying such corridors not only contribute to the development of the Belt and Road Initiative, but most important help boost local economies and improve trade and cargo exchange. “That is the sense in all this—the sense that we perceive the idea of one route, one road,” Adamczyk said.

Adamczyk also discussed extending the Polish A4 highway to Ukraine, which is of great interest to neighboring Belarus and Ukraine, as well as to the countries of Central Asia. Adamczyk reminded his audience that “such communication corridors, a part of Belt and Road Initiative, are already being carried out,” Xinhua wrote.

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
U.S. Cabinet Tells Senate: Infrastructure Bill Has To Come from Congress
March 15 (EIRNS)—The rare testimony of five Cabinet members at a single hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee March 13, simply reinforced Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao’s message the week before: A legislative design for building a new economic infrastructure must come from Congress.

Chao was asked by Michigan Democrat Gary Peters why an infrastructure “initiative” from the White House had taken 14 months, and how a $200 billion Federal contribution to national infrastructure spending—or any Federal contribution—can be funded? She replied that the Trump Administration had planned from the start that infrastructure legislation would follow health care and tax reform; and that it was presenting “only principles, not legislation, we are not specifying funding—that is what we hope and expect will come from the Congress.” The Energy and Labor Secretaries echoed her, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross merely threw in the irrelevant “Australia model” of selling off existing infrastructure to fund new.

Chao’s statement was absolutely true, embarrassingly so for the Democrats who were again content simply to attack the (essentially nonexistent) White House “plan.”

According to the Constitution, Congress makes the laws. It passed the Glass-Steagall Act with partial encouragement from Franklin Roosevelt; it created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) for Herbert Hoover, who did not know how to use it, whereas FDR did. It legislated the funding for NASA after President John Kennedy laid out the mission for it.

Thus far, this Congress has failed to respond to the Trump Administration’s repeated requests that it create legislation to provide the funding for new infrastructure. It falls to the LaRouche Political Action Committee’s mobilization to make it do so.

Italian Economist Bagnai, Newly Elected Senator, Promotes Glass-Steagall for Italy
March 15 (EIRNS)—Well-known economist Alberto Bagnai has been elected to the Italian Senate on the Lega slate. In a long video interview with videoblog Byoblu, he emphasizes Glass-Steagall as part of the explanation of why he, a leftist intellectual, joined a “right-wing” party like the Lega. The left is divided into two camps, Bagnai says: the willing executioners, who are in the government, and the useful idiots of finance capital, such as those who call for power to the people.

“I am not prejudicially against finance. We have been stalked by people who insist that money is the feces of the devil—somewhere between St. Bernardine of Siena and a mental hospital. But finance must play a function in a capitalist economy. However, since the left joined the government … this function has become hypertrophic. Finance has become a neoplasm and one must deal with it. In the Lega program there are some corrective measures; for instance, separation between commercial and investment banks,” the classical description of FDR’s 1933 Glass-Steagall Act.

SCIENCE & INFRASTRUCTURE
Putin Announces Russian Mars Mission for 2019
March 15 (EIRNS)—In a follow-up to his March 1 Address to the Federal Assembly, RT reports today that President Vladimir Putin told Andrey Kondrashov in a new documentary, “Putin,” that, “We are planning unmanned and later manned launches—into deep space, as part of a lunar program and for Mars exploration. The closest mission is very soon—we are planning to launch a mission to Mars in 2019.” He further stated that the lunar exploration program would target the polar regions of the Moon.

“Our specialists will try landing near the poles because there are reasons to expect water there. There is research to be done there, and from that, research of other planets and outer space can be undertaken,” Putin said.

(China has announced plans to set up a base in the region of the Moon’s South Pole.)

The plans for Russia’s lunar program include a landing test at the Moon’s southern pole scheduled for 2019, testing technology that can be used for a permanent lunar outpost in 2023 and a soil retrieval mission in 2025. A base on the Moon may be established sometime in the 2040s or 2050s.

RT reports that Russia has not attempted any Martian missions since the failed launch of Phobos-Grunt in 2011, but has collaborated with other nations. The 2016 Schiaparelli EDM lander mission was part of a joint program by Russia’s Roscosmos and the European Space Agency, and utilized a Russian rocket.

China-Built High-Speed Rail Will Transform Panama, Industry Minister Predicts
March 15 (EIRNS)—In remarks reported by Spain’s EFE news service March 13, Panama’s Commerce and Industry Minister, Augusto Arosemena reported that the proposed high-speed passenger and cargo rail line that China will build from Panama City north to the Costa Rican border, will transform the nation.

In much the way the construction of the Panama Canal did 100 years ago, Arosemena said that the new line, whose construction will begin in 2022, will change Panama’s “dynamic.” Plans are advancing rapidly, he said, explaining that Chinese technical experts have visited the country frequently, to work on the feasibility study and determine the project’s benefits for the country.

Xinhua reported March 1 that the head of Costa Rica’s foreign trade office, Lil Marie Rodriguez, also commented enthusiastically about the proposed rail line’s potential for increasing trade and economic activity in the region, with China’s backing. Panama and Costa Rica can work together, she said, to take advantage of the opportunities China offers.

Arosemena pointed out that not only will the proposed rail line connect the capital of Panama City to the country’s interior, but hopefully at some future point, will unite all the countries of Central America. A Central American rail line that will connect to Mexico and the United States, extending through North America to the proposed Bering Strait Rail Tunnel, is an essential feature in the concept for a World Land-Bridge put forward by Lyndon and Helga LaRouche.

Russia and China Establish a Strategic Joint Uranium Mining Project in Siberia
March 15 (EIRNS)—The Russia-China Investment Fund for Regional Development will develop a joint uranium mining project in Siberia’s Zabaikalsky Region, RT reported March 13. The enterprise is valued at $325 million, with $262 million financed by the China National Nuclear Corp. It will be owned by two Rosatom subsidiaries: The Priargunsky Industrial Mining and Chemical Union will own 51%, and ARMZ Uranium Holding the rest. The mine is reported to have reserves of 40,000 tons of refined uranium, and projected to be in operation by 2023. Annual capacity is planned for 850,000 tons of uranium ore.

Sergey Glazyev, an advisor to President Putin, describes the project more broadly, telling Sputnik: “Both sides consider the project as the first step in widening cooperation. I think that the enterprise is a breakthrough for creating mechanisms for joint investments in general.”